Wheel of Decisions

A decision needs to be made for your character, but you don't want to make a heavy dramatic moment out of it—rather, a comedic one?

Use the Wheel of Decisions! A colorful carnival wheel of fortune with images of all the different options illustrated on each space. No matter where it stops, the option will be amusing.

Sister Trope to Decision Darts.

Examples of Wheel of Decisions include:

Advertising

• This is crossed with Decision Darts in one of the old TV commercials for Bartles & Jaymes Premium Wine Cooler. It showed Frank and Ed selecting a new flavor with a spinning dartboard.

Comic Books

• The Planetary Chance Machine from an early story of the Legion of Super-Heroes, also crossed with Decision Darts in that the spinning wheel tosses off parts of itself—the person they strike is the one chosen.
• One Richie Rich cover from the 1980s shows Richie about to spin one of these in deciding which of his girlfriends to ask out.

Film

• UHF plays with the trope: the game show "Wheel of Fish", where the contestant can choose to win the type of fish the wheel lands on.
• There was something like this in Scott Pilgrim when Scott is trying to figure out what to say. As you can see here, it didn't quite work out as planned.
• Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome: Bust a deal, face the wheel!

Literature

• In some Doctor Dolittle stories, the decision of where to go next is made by spinning a globe and stopping it with one's finger, or opening an atlas and pointing at random.

Live Action TV

• In teen sitcoms, some girls have the Wheel of Excuses for what they'll say to turn down a boy they don't want to date.
• Played with on Late Night, where Jimmy Fallon has the wheel of carpet samples. The carpet sample names are often very descriptive (for example "hotel lobby"). There are supposedly "points" awarded based on the carpet sample the wheel lands on, but these are arbitrary. The wheel only chooses the carpet sample the audience member/player may get if he/she "wins".
• In FOX's pseudo-reality show My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss (a parody of The Apprentice), the Man Behind the Man, who makes the decisions on who gets fired, is a monkey with a decision wheel.
• In WWE and WCW, Eric Bishoff instigated a Wheel of Fortune which would decide the Gimmick Matches wrestlers would be involved in. "Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal" in WCW, "WWE Roulette" in WWE.
• Lexx: Episode 1.3, "Eating Pattern". The people controlled by the Satellite Worms incorporated a spinning wheel in their sadistic pattern-making ritual.
• Some seasons of Have I Got News for You have had rounds where one of these is used to choose the headlines (other seasons have used variations, such as strength-o-meters).

Web Comics

• During DMFA's Mandatory Non-Canon Spy-Spoof, Dr. Jyrras uses a 'wheel of death' to decide how to kill the recently captured James Bond expy. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it lands on 'Death by Shonen-ai'.

Western Animation

• Animaniacs has the Wheel of Morality.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender has the Wheel of Punishment in "Avatar Day" to determine what sentence someone gets from their screwy justice system.
• Fairly Oddparents has this in one episode. In order to decide which fairy will host the next fairy convention, Jorgen spins Binky while the latter is tied to a carnival wheel with every fairy's name on it.
• Futurama has a wheel which the robot devil spins, with every robot's name on it. He uses it to pick which robot will have his hands exchanged with Fry's hands.
• Looney Tunes cartoon "It's Hummer Time" has a dog using one to pick punishments for a cat.
• Ultimate Spider-Man: Spidey's imagination has Wheel of Excuses for what he'll tell his Muggle friends when his superhero life intrudes on his regular life.